Bridge Match 1 - Board 129

Board 129 – Dealer North – No Vul

My hand: ♠ J T 9 8 7 4 ♥ A 9 3 ♦ Q 4 ♣ A 7

Partner opens 1 hearts and East jumps to 2NT showing the minors. I bid 4 hearts which gets passed out. East leads the 5 of clubs.

	NORTH ♠ Q 5 ♥ Q J T 8 4 2 ♦ K 2 ♣ K T 2
		EAST ♣ 5
	SOUTH ♠ J T 9 8 7 4 ♥ A 9 3 ♦ Q 4 ♣ A 7

West	North	East	South
	1♥	2NT1	4♥
Pass	Pass	Pass
1Unusual

I have 2 clubs and 5 hearts. I can easily set up a diamond and a lot of spades. Unfortunately I have 4 losers. 2 spades and a diamond for sure, and maybe the K of hearts. They're all top tricks except the heart which I can only avoid by finessing for it or dropping it. East has 10 cards in the minors so it's almost inconceivable that West could have a stiff K. I can play a round of spades pretty safely first to find out. I hope the club. 5-A-8-2. I fire out a spade. 4-K-Q-3 of clubs.

Well now. West does have one heart. It's still 1 in 4 that he has the king though, so I should still finesse. He returned a diamond, anyway. 9-K-A-4. East plays another club which I win in hand. 4-7-J-K.

I lead a trump and East covers. Q-K-A-7. Now I just need to manage my entries and I'm good. Actually, I just need to ruff the club and I'm up. So I play a heart to the J, ruff the club back, cash the high diamond and concede a spade. Making 4.

	NORTH ♠ Q 5 ♥ Q J T 8 4 2 ♦ K 2 ♣ K T 2
WEST ♠ A K 6 3 2 ♥ 7 5 ♦ 9 8 6 5 ♣ J 8		EAST ♠ ♥ K 6 ♦ A J T 7 3 ♣ Q 9 6 5 4 3
	SOUTH ♠ J T 9 8 7 4 ♥ A 9 3 ♦ Q 4 ♣ A 7

Professor Jack disagrees with ducking the spade. He wants me to play a club instead, probably to ruff a club or maybe to take the heart finesse right away. In retrospect while I gained information by playing the spade it wasn't information I was willing to act on (I was going to finesse even with hearts 1-3) so it was probably wrong.


On the replay the auction and lead are identical. Declarer wins the opening lead in hand and finesses hearts. He doesn't finesse in a way he can repeat though, so he has to play a diamond to try to build another hand entry. It fails. Declarer is forced to hope for a 2-2 heart split and luckily for him it works. Also making 4, but I feel screwed.

Nick: 420
Jack: 420
IMPs: 0 (-44 total)